BACA ORDERED TO HALT HIRING DUE TO RED INK.

Los Angeles County officials ordered a temporary freeze Friday on hiring, promotions and bonuses in the Sheriff's Department because it faces overspending its budget by $25.3 million this financial year.

Sheriff Lee Baca has contested the order, saying he wants to repay the deficit over two years by cutting back on new hires and training academy classes, and delaying some maintenance at the sheriff's 77 facilities.

``I believe this hiring freeze is unwarranted, and the plan to remedy our overspending is capable of doing that,'' Baca said Friday.

Since Baca took office in 1998, critics say the department has become top heavy while the number of deputies and sergeants in the field has remained stagnant. They say Baca has mismanaged the department and overspent his budget with a rash of promotions, questionable new expenses and spiraling overtime.

The budget clampdown comes as Baca is attempting to get his office exempted from a term-limits measure expected on the March ballot. He also is sponsoring another ballot measure that would ask voters for a county charter change to increase the number of assistant sheriffs from two to three and division chiefs from eight to 12.

``It strikes me as ironic that someone who has to bear some responsibility for mismanagement and waste is now asking to be exempted from term limits,'' said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

``I would say one of the things term limits is supposed to do is ensure people don't get too entrenched, and oftentimes we see this kind of increased spending by entrenched bureaucrats and politicians.''

Baca said several factors contributed to the overspending, including $17 million to train 2,000 new deputies in the past two years, $38 million in salary and benefit increases approved by the Board of Supervisors and a requirement to promote nearly 400 deputies to sergeant as a result of a 1981 sexual harassment case.

``I'm confident that we will fix this problem and pay back the deficit over the two-year plan,'' Baca said. ``No other major law enforcement agency in this country has recruited 2,000 people and trained them in a two-year period.''

Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen wrote in a report earlier this week that the Sheriff's Department's total cost overrun over the next two years will be $55.3 million. That includes $20 million in payments in connection with last month's record $27 million settlement with up to 400,000 former jail inmates who were held beyond their release dates and improperly strip-searched. It also includes $10 million for a 10 percent increase in 2000-01 over the prior year in workers' compensation expenses.

Earlier this week, the Board of Supervisors criticized Baca for the ``sizable shortfall'' in his $1.5 billion budget. Supervisors quizzed his budget officials on why he wanted to buy more vehicles and motorcycles after the board already authorized the purchase of 1,580 new vehicles - at around $23,000 each - since 1996, increasing the fleet from 2,830 to 4,410 vehicles.

``There's a lot of spending going on in this department,'' Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. ``There is the whole fleet issue and how and when we buy cars and whether we have the money and what we're buying the cars for.

``It reminds me of somebody that says, you know, that mink is on sale. It's marked down from $10,000 to $7,500. You can save $2,500. If you don't have the $7,500, you shouldn't be buying it. That's an issue this department needs to focus on, and I think that helped contribute to the problem we now face.''

Sgt. Patrick Gomez, who is running against Baca in the March primary, said about 300 high-ranking officers and civilian executives were given late-model Ford Crown Victoria and Ford Taurus cars as ``perks'' to drive home to places as far away as Victorville and Dana Point.

``They don't have to account for where they drive,'' said Gomez, a 21-year veteran of the department who trains deputies in the custody division.

``Taxpayers are paying for the car and gas, yet you have deputies driving cars with 80,000 to 100,000 miles that are pieces of junk. That is where a lot of the money is going.''

Baca said the practice of allowing certain officials to take home vehicles is appropriate, given the size of the county and the need for some of the officials to respond to emergencies.

``I think that metaphors like perks is a form of resentment on the part of the individual using those metaphors, and one shouldn't be resenting someone else's necessity,'' Baca said. ``We do it out of necessity.''

Gomez said Baca has hired additional assistant sheriffs, chiefs, commanders and captains and has given retiring departmental executives lucrative contracts as consultants.

One retired commander moved to West Virginia to work as a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, and the department shipped him a Ford Taurus to drive, he said.

``It's ridiculous,'' Gomez said. ``Other lobbyists continue to go to Washington, D.C., to speak on various issues, but if we have him there, what's the purpose?''

Gomez also criticized the sheriff for spending about $300,000 for a fence around the Pitchess Detention Center.

``It's purely cosmetic,'' Gomez said. ``It's the kind you see on the 'Dallas' TV show. There is no purpose for it. Yet, we have people up there who need equipment.''

As part of Baca's unprecedented 30-year strategic plan to reorganize the department to streamline operations, Gomez said, the sheriff would be required to eliminate seven deputy positions in order to add 10 administrative positions.

``This department has never been this top-heavy,'' Gomez said. ``When he became sheriff, he created six captains and six more commander positions.''

The decrease in the number of deputies and sergeants on the streets and in the jails has resulted in those law enforcement personnel working more overtime, which cost the department $109 million last year, about $18 million over budget, officials said.

``There are civilian employees getting the maximum of 96 hours of overtime a month because we don't have enough people working,'' Gomez said. ``We don't have enough nurses. These are positions that are critical to running our jails. Yet, he's adding executive positions.''

Meanwhile, the number of high-ranking brass in the department has increased.

From fiscal year 1997-98 to 1999-00, the number of captains increased from 51 to 59; commanders from 17 to 24; chiefs from seven to eight and assistant sheriffs from two to three, according to sheriff's year in review statistics. The number of lieutenants dropped from 286 to 271.

In the same period, the number of sergeants dropped from 959 to 884. The number of deputies increased from 6,661 to 7,010, but sheriff's officials say that increase is mainly due to the 600 to 700 additional deputies hired as a result of the department taking over law enforcement services for the city of Compton, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the community colleges.

Baca said he inherited hundreds of vacancies from former Sheriff Sherman Block's administration.